Slave Trade in the Early Modern Crimea From the Perspective of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources

2007 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikhail Kizilov
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Commercial Activity ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Early Modern Times

AbstractThe Crimea, a peninsula on the border between the Christian West and the Muslim East, was a place where merchants from all over the Black Sea region, East and West Mediterranean, Anatolia, Turkey, Russia, and West European countries came to buy, sell, and exchange their goods. In this trade "live merchandise"—reluctant travellers, seized by the Tatars during their raids to adjacent countries—was one of the main objects to be negotiated. Numerous published and archival sources (accounts of European and Ottoman travellers, letters and memoirs of captives, Turkish defters [registers], Russian and Ottoman chronicles to mention some of them) composed by Muslim, Christian, and Jewish authors provide not only a detailed account of the slave trade in the region in the Early Modern times, but also a discussion of some moral implications related to this sort of commercial activity. While most of the authors expressed their disapproval of the Tatar predatory raids and cruel treatment of the captives, none of them, it seems, objected to the existence of the slave trade per se, considering it just another off shoot of the international trade. Another issue often discussed in the sources was the problem of the slaves' conversion.

scholarly journals A Sacral and Mythical Landscape: The Crimea in the East European Context

2019 ◽  
pp. 11-32
Author(s):  
Kerstin S. Jobst
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Crimean Peninsula ◽  
East European ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
Political Agents

The Crimean peninsula plays a decisive role as a mythical place both in literature(e.g. by Goethe, Pushkin, Mickiewicz) and in many (pre-)national contexts and narratives: in the early modern period, for instance, the Polish nobility had developed the idea of its Sarmatian ancestry, an ethnos which in antiquity settled in the Black Sea area and the peninsula. German-speaking intellectuals in the 19th century developed an “enthusiasm for the Crimean Goths”.They believed that they had discovered their ancestors in the Gothic Crimean inhabitants, who had been extinct since early modern times. But above all the National Socialists attempted to legitimize their political claims to the peninsula. The mythical and legendary narrations associated with the Crimea in Russian culture, however, were particularly effective: The alleged baptism of Grand Duke Vladimir in Chersones in 988, which is said to have brought Christianity to the Kievan Ruś, plays a central role here, as do the numerous writers who drew inspiration from the Crimea. These narratives were used also by Russian political agents to legitimize the annexation of the Crimea in 2014.

Architecture of One-Apsidal Churches of North Black Sea Coast VI-XII c.

2018 ◽  
Vol 931 ◽  
pp. 790-796
Author(s):  
Viktoria V. Pishchulina
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The North ◽  
Black Sea Coast ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
The One ◽  
Sea Coast

A one-apsidal hall church is always a reflection of so-called “vulgar” Christianity, thus revealing the important peculiarities of the spatial culture of the region where it is erected. In this region we can mark two periods when such temples were built: VI-VII c. and X-XII c. The first period is associated with the missionary activity by Byzantine Empire, Antioch, Caucasian Albania which was conditioned by both geopolitical interests (Byzantian Empire, Antioch) and the shift of The Great Silk Way to the north (Caucasian Albania). The second, as the research has shown, is connected with the migration of the peoples of Abkhazia, the abzakhs to this territory in the XII-XIII c. and the development of contacts with the Crimea. In the North Black Sea Region the one-apsidal hall church appears as early as in the VI c. – in the territory of Abkhazia we know about ten such temples. The temples of this type in the area of Big Sochi are dated back to the VII-VIII c. In the first Abhzaian temples we can reveal the influence of denominational centers – Byzantian Empire, Antioch, Caucasian Albania. In the temples of the Black Sea coast of both periods – introduction of the samples from Abkhazia.

scholarly journals THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE IN THE INTERCIVILIZATION DIALOGUE IN SOUTHERN UKRAINE. THOUGHTS ON THE NEW APPROACHES TO TURKISH HISTORIOGRAPHY

2021 ◽  
pp. 15-20
Author(s):  
Vodotyka S. ◽  
Robak I.
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
History Of ◽  
Primary Basis

The article is devoted to reviewing the book by the well-known Turkish historian İlber Ortaylı "Ottomans on Three Continents". The authors consistently analyze the main postulates of the work in the history of Ottoman possessions in the Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region, focusing on the role of the Ottoman Empire in the interaction of Black Sea civilizations in the late Middle Ages and early modern times.The authors prove that the history of the Ottoman Empire is essential for understanding the history of Ukraine. Ottoman influences significantly impacted the history of the Ukrainian people and other indigenous peoples of Ukraine – Crimean Tatars, Karaites and Krymchaks, Crimean Greeks.The authors agree with the thesis of the Turkish researcher about the significant and sometimes decisive influence of the Ottomans on the situation in the Black Sea region in the XV–XVIII centuries. Furthermore, the authors express their views on certain statements of the book. In particular, İlber Ortaylı proves that the Ottoman Empire was a "state of the Middle Eastern Islamic type". Its presence in the Black Sea resulted in the interaction of Islamic Mediterranean civilization with Eastern European Orthodoxy and Ukraine were at the centre of this interaction. However, the authors cannot agree with the historian's statement about the primary basis of the empire – the system of the state, especially military, slavery (devshirme). It allowed to creation of a vast empire, The Sublime or Ottoman Porte. However, slavery could not create social mechanisms of progress. The civilizational basis of the Ottoman Empire was its steppe, Turkic-steppe, essence.In the Ottoman Empire, Western modernization borrowings were superficial, served utilitarian-pragmatic purposes, and did not change the foundations of civilization. Such selectable reforms were the reason why the Omans lost their possessions in the Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region to the Russian Empire in the eighteenth century. Significantly, both empires claim the imperial, not civilizational, heritage of the Roman Empire. The intelligence emphasizes that these claims are not sufficiently substantiated.Key words: İlber Ortaylı, Ottoman Empire, heritage, history of Ukraine, Northern Black Sea Coast, Crimea. Стаття присвячена огляду-рецензії книги відомого турецького історика Ільбера Ортайли «Османи на трьох континентах». Автори послідовно проаналізували основні постулати праці в координатах історії османських володінь в Криму і Північному Причорномор’ї, приділивши головну увагу ролі Османської імперії у взаємодії цивілізацій Чорномор’я у періоди пізнього середньовіччя і раннього модерного часу.Доведено, що історія Османської імперії має важливе значення для розуміння історії України. Османські впливи відіграли значну роль в історії українського народу та інших корінних народів України – кримських татар, караїмів і кримчаків, кримських греків.Автори погоджуються з тезою турецького дослідника про значний, а часом визначальний, вплив Османів на ситуацію у Чорномор’ї у ХV–ХVІІІ ст. та висловлюють свої міркування щодо окремих положень праці. Зокрема, І. Ортайли кваліфіковано доводить, що Османська імперія була «державою близькосхідно-ісламського типу» і її присутність у Чорномор’ї мала наслідком взаємодію ісламської середземноморської цивілізації зі східноєвропейською православною, причому Україна знаходилась у центрі цієї взаємодії. Однак, не можна погодитись з твердженням історика щодо головної основи імперії – системи державного, передусім військового, рабства (девшірме). Вона дозволило створити величезну імперію, Сяючу Порту, але рабство не може створити суспільних механізмів поступу. Цивілізаційною основою Османської імперії стала її степова, тюрксько-степова, сутність. В Османській імперії західні модернізаційні запозичення були поверховими, служили утилітарно-прагматичним цілям і не змінювали цивілізаційних основ. Власне це і стало основною причиною того, що у ХVІІІ ст. Омани втратили свої володіння в Криму і Північному Причорномор’ї, які дістались Російській імперії. Показово, що обидві імперії висувають претензії на імперську, а не цивілізаційну, спадщину Римської імперії. У розвідці наголошується, що ці претензії не є достатньо обґрунтованими. Ключові слова: І. Ортайли, Османська імперія, спадщина, історія України, Північне Причорномор’я, Крим.

scholarly journals Этническая история Северо-Восточного Причерноморья и Крыма в IV–X веках

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Abramov
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Taman Peninsula ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
History Of

Автор продолжает серию статей по этнической и конфессиональной истории Причерноморья. Крым и Таманский полуостров издревле для многих народов были олицетворением единения Европы и Азии. Именно отсюда началось приобщение народов Восточной Европы к христианству. Именно здесь в VIII-IX вв. разворачивалось острое противостояние между готами-христианами и хазарами-иудеями. Все эти процессы запечатлены в памятниках архитектуры и археологии, объектах историко-культурного наследия.The author continues a series of articles on the ethnic and confessional history of the Black Sea region. For centuries, the Crimea and the Taman Peninsula have represented for many peoples the unity of Europe and Asia. This is where the introduction of the peoples of Eastern Europe to Christianity began. This is where in the VIII-IX centuries a sharp confrontation between the Christian Goths and the Khazars-Jews took place. All the processes are reflected in monuments of architecture and archeology, objects of historical and cultural heritage.

scholarly journals Crimean-Ottoman Factor in the Socio-Cultural System of Russia in Early Modern Times

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 115-148
Author(s):  
T. V. Chernikova
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
Territorial Expansion ◽  
Russian State ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
The Military

Abstract: The article gives a description of the sociocultural organization of Russia and the peculiarities of its geopolitical position in the system of international relations of the early modern period. Questions were raised about the reasons for the rapid territorial expansion of the Russian state in the second half of the 15-17 centuries, as well as its high competitiveness in foreign policy both in relations with its western neighbors and in the eastern direction.For the states of Western Europe with the beginning of their modernization, modern age has come, however “Muscovy” in the 15-17 centuries remained a medieval country. At the same time, it not only did not share the fate of many eastern powers with a traditional way, which turned into the 17th-19th centuries in the colony and semi-colony, but also, on the contrary, it led a successful colonial expansion and demonstrated externally the almost synchronous trends in state building that were inherent in the Western European countries.The author believes that the patrimonial structure of the sociocultural system of the Russian state in the 15-17 centuries contributed to the mobilization of internal material and human resources, coupled with an early superficial “Europeanization” (regular borrowing the military, technical, and cultural experience of modernizing Western Europe), ensured Russia's competitiveness in the world. Since the emergence of the united Moscow state, Russia has developed as a land empire.However, the strategic national task of Russia was not to preserve the medieval patrimony, but to create the prerequisites for its modernization. Amid the socio-economic development, which is characteristic of all countries with a patrimonial structure, that could have started only by transferring the center of Russian extensive agriculture to the southern fertile lands. This would free part of the population of the non-chernozem center for trade and industrial activities. But the transfer of the agrarian center to the south was restrained by the constant military danger from the Wild Field, which was part of the Horde, and then the Crimean Khanate, backed until the end of the 18 century by the Ottoman Empire, perceiving the Black Sea with its “inland lake”. As a result, the struggle for the Black Sea and Crimea to become a part of Russia, as well as the overcoming the patrimonial order, becomes a matter of civilizational success or failure of Russia in the context of world history.

scholarly journals Crimea in the Era of Napoleon: the ‘French trace’ in regional politics

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 540-559
Author(s):  
Denis V. Konkin
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Russian Government ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
Russian Territory ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
The Military

When the Crimea acquired the status of Russian territory in 1783, it became an imperial ‘borderland’ a long way from Saint Petersburg. However, in the geopolitical aspirations of European powers, and, also, from the viewpoint of the Russian Empire, the Crimea was not a remote periphery. The Russian government consistently sought to attract colonists from abroad to the thinly-populated Black Sea region. Several attempts to do so ended in failure; one of these was the organization of farming colonies at the Sea of Azov for French royalist emigrants and military men from Condé’s army. In the era of Napoleon, France paid particular attention to the peninsula; in the complicated foreign policy conditions, France did not miss any opportunity to reconnoitre the internal situation of this potentially unstable province of Russia, with the goal to infl uence the position of the Ottomans towards this territory which at that time was largely populated by Muslims. The author emphasizes that an important aspect of Napoleon’s foreign policy was supporting anti-Russian sentiment in the Ottoman Empire. One of the obvious means to achieve this goal was focusing on the Crimea issue and promising assistance for returning the peninsula into the Ottoman sphere of infl uence. The Russian authorities did not neglect these attempts and countered them skilfully. The author argues that the success of Russia’s policy in the Crimea was mainly related to certain Frenchmen in Russian service. During the Russian-Ottoman confl ict of 1806-1812, the military and administrative measures conducted by Armand de Richelieu, the Governor of New Russia, and Jean de Traversay, the commander of the Black Sea Navy, became an important factor for providing a stable situation within the peninsula.

scholarly journals Stability, Ambiguity and Change in the Discourses of NATO allies in the Black Sea region: The Cases of Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (80) ◽  
pp. 187-209
Author(s):  
Valentin Naumescu
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
The Political ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
Eastern Flank ◽  
The Crimea

AbstractShortly after the Crimea crisis of March 2014, NATO started a process of strategic reflection and a series of actions under the umbrella of the ‘Pivot to East’. On the South of its Eastern flank, the Black Sea region looms as one of the most unstable areas, with a number of frozen conflicts in non-NATO countries as well as an increasing unrest overall. This article explores the political discourses, commitments and attitudes towards NATO of the three allies at the Black Sea, namely Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey, as well as exploring their role in regional security. The purpose of the research is to compare NATO’s representation in the mainstream politics of these countries. Based on discourse analysis and the comparative method, the paper examines to what extent stability, ambiguity and change are present in the Southeast allies’ discourses on NATO.

Some miscellaneous notes on the town and antiquities of Sinop, mainly from travellers' accounts

1998 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 175-180
Author(s):  
M. E. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Jewish Population ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Final Note ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
Bad Weather ◽  
The Town

In these notes are presented various trouvailles encountered by the writer in the course of other researches. Although disconnected and inconclusive, they may be of some use to students of Sinop and to those interested in the general subject of the collection of antiquities in the Levant. In general, well-known sources have not been discussed, except in so far as they afford comparison with the less familiar accounts dealt with here. A final note refers to the Jewish population of Sinop in the early Ottoman period in relation to travellers' accounts.In antiquity, the status of Sinop as a port was well known. Arrian is almost alone in describing the town not as a harbour but only in relation to its being a Milesian colony and the founder of Trabzon (Baschmakoff 1948: 80–81, 94–95). Similarly, in the later middle ages and early modern times, references to Sinop were almost always in relation to its port. For some, the interest was urgent: it was a welcome refuge for Bishop Ignatios of Smolensk when in 1389 his vessel, coasting the Crimea, was driven to the southern Pontic shore. Adverse winds detained him there for two days (Majeska 1984: 86–89). He was more fortunate than Ibn Battuta, some 40 years earlier, whom bad weather had delayed there for 40 days (Ibn Battuta, translated by H. A. R. Gibb 1957: 141).

Ideology, history, and politics in service of repatriation

Focaal ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 (70) ◽  
pp. 37-48
Author(s):  
Eftihia Voutira
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Group Status ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Indigenous Group ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
Dual Commitment ◽  
Crimean Tatar

This article discusses the post–Cold War repatriation to the Black Sea of people deported to Central Asia after World War II, Crimean Tatars and Pontic Greeks. It reflects on their novel ethnic and religious identifications, not available to them before their exile. Religious labeling is now used by officials as a criterion for allocating people to places, and by people as expressions of loyalty and belonging. Politically, such labeling is used for negotiating appropriate sites for resettlement schemes for the two groups in the region. The Crimean Tatar strategy is to argue in favor of “indigenous group” status, while the Pontic Greeks opt for dual commitment between repatriation to their “kin state” (Greece) and their pre-WWII places of residence in the Crimea. The comparison of the dilemmas faced by the two communities upon repatriation elucidates the role of the Black Sea region in the pragmatics of “returning home” and people's sentiments of belonging.

Mobile Actors, Mobile Slaves: Female Slaves from the Black Sea Region in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul

DIYÂR ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-104
Author(s):  
Veruschka Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Slave Women ◽  
Female Slaves

This contribution aims to investigate mobility in the context of Ottoman slavery. Mainly on the basis of seventeenth-century Istanbul court records, the study deals with the question of mobility by focusing on female household slaves in Ottoman Istanbul who originated from the Black Sea region. With a look at the actors who surrounded them, female slaves are analysed at different stages in their lives. These stages were marked by changes related to mobility. The entry as well as the exit from slavery meant a spatial and social mobility for the slave women. But even in the time in between, slave women remained mobile through aspects such as conversion and resale. This paper further shows that Ottoman slavery and the slave trade were part of the Transottoman context: it can be seen that spaces of interaction were created through the connections and exchanges of actors beyond the Ottoman Empire.

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